


Tiptoe on Twine

by Xmarksthespot



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Love Confessions, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3658083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xmarksthespot/pseuds/Xmarksthespot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra understands love. She knows parental love, biological or otherwise. She has love from her friends. She receives admiration from the entire world. If love is equivalent to water, Korra would be swimming in an ocean.</p><p>Korra knows love, but it doesn’t make her any less terrified than she is at that very moment, when Asami extends her hand, and holds onto Korra like an oncoming tidal wave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiptoe on Twine

It’s cloudy today. Cloudy and murky and gross and Korra’s suspended high up in the air on a tightrope. Metaphorically, that is. Not about the clouds and the humid air, because Korra’s luck has never been that great when it concerns the weather, but the tightrope is fake. It has fake lava on one side, boiling and toiling, hissing out sins, while there’s fake solid earth on the other side, empty with vast freezing invisible claws snatching away any remnants of happiness. Either way, falling would result in death.

Er, _fake death_.

Not that Korra’s planning on faking her death any time in the near future, really. She just feels like she’s on the verge of falling off the metaphorical tightrope she’s created for herself every time she’s had to deal with balancing seemingly unbalanced variables. For every two steps back, she takes three steps forward and she thinks: this is it; no more rope.

And then…

“Korra?”

There’s more fake rope.

Korra doesn’t know why she’s spent the last half hour running. She didn’t even bother to bring Naga. She’s technically been avoiding Asami all week, claiming to be busy or feeling unwell. Which yeah, it was very true; there had been something off with her body and it bugged Korra that she couldn’t tell why.

But today? That morning, she had opened her eyes feeling sea sick because of being suspended so far up into the sky on a string of twine, and the first person she thought of to make her feel better, in spite of the past week, was Asami.

So now it’s a murky and gross day and Korra thinks the bread she stuck into her mouth before dashing out of Tenzin’s home was stale, because it doesn’t sit right in her stomach. She has one arm stuck in the sleeve of her jacket, and the other jacket arm dangling along the side of her body because she didn’t think about clothes, let alone exchanging her pajama pants for actual street appropriate pants. There’s a trail of dust that’s probably followed her from Air Temple Island through to half of Republic City and all the way to Asami’s place from practically having drawn the air around her to boost each step she took.

Asami looks like she hasn’t showered in days—she probably hasn’t actually showered in days. Luckily, while Korra’s been avoiding her, Asami had been cooped up in her workshop all week with her latest project. Korra can’t help but stare in awe as Asami ungraciously wipes her oil stained hands on her pants or when Asami moves her arm over to scratch her nose, when really Korra knows it’s to sniff her armpits to see if she could afford approaching Korra without killing the potted hydrangeas along the way.

Without meaning to, Korra snorts. As if she hadn’t met Asami up at their five star restaurant dates after pummeling Mako and Bolin into the earth just short of an hour before, covered in layers of sweat. But it isn’t until Asami begins to walk up to her that suddenly, she feels the wind pull the tightrope beneath her toes back and forth.

“Is there something wrong, Korra?” Asami asks. “You haven’t been yourself all week.”

The statement catches Korra's breath. Of course, despite being so cooped up in her workshop that she forgot to shower, Asami _would_ notice when Korra hasn’t been herself. It’s always like her, to know when the one little nut or washer is off a few degrees inside a hunk of metal, when all Korra can see is the big picture.  Sometimes Asami would bring a bottle of water for Korra after a long day of training, and Korra will look at her girlfriend’s face before asking: “Have _you_ had any water?” to which Asami will realize: huh, no, she hasn’t.

It makes Mako and Bolin laugh and shake their heads, how she and Asami manage to care for everybody but themselves, and somehow that works because they managed to care for each other.

Sometimes Korra thinks about the dumb, fake tightrope, and decides that maybe she feels sick because beneath her with the lava on one side and cold earth on the other, somewhere off in the distance, there’s Asami, playing with a wrench in one hand and holding a bottle of water for her in the other. And it makes her sick because she’s so used to people shouting encouragements to her from behind, or bending the lava and earth away from below, that she’s never gotten used to there being someone at the end of her rope to walk to.

“Do you want to watch me work? You can tell me about your day,” Asami offers with a sincere smile and then a laugh so melodic, Korra can’t help but smile. “Maybe it will make you feel better to let it out while the car engines filter out your cursing. Tenzin can’t blame you for teaching Rohan the wrong words this time.”

And that’s just it. _This_. Asami and her stench so bad, the hydrangeas are actually wilting beside Korra, and her smile so honest, it’s practically tangible. Korra’s the Avatar. She could bend her way across the tightrope. Fake bend her fake world across the fake rope that has been giving her trouble and a deep rooted hatred for the gymnastics balance beam.

But Asami’s on the other end, and so…

Two steps back. Three steps forward.

“I got it!”

And dear Spirits, she _gets it_.  She finally understands and she practically runs across the thin string of twine without having to bend anything. Because that sick, weird feeling Korra’s felt all week? Or month or year or however long it’s been going on with or without Korra’s poor attention to detail that Asami more than makes up for anyway?

“What’s it, Korra?” Asami asks, stepping forward and reaching out for her.

And Korra can only grin—grin prouder and wider than she’s ever had to before.

“I’m in love with you!”

Korra understands love. She knows parental love, biological or otherwise. She has love from her friends. She receives admiration from the entire world. If love is equivalent to water, Korra would be swimming in an ocean.

Korra knows love, but it doesn’t make her any less terrified than she is at that very moment, when Asami extends her hand, and holds onto Korra like an oncoming tidal wave.

And the rush feels _fantastic_.

“What?”

“I’m in love with you. Asami, I love you! I love you, I love you,” Korra chants, voice filled with exuberance. She can’t stop, even if she wants to. Those words pull her so very, very easily across the rope and she’s so close to the end—she doesn’t even think there’s more rope at the end of all this. Not anymore. And even if there is, it doesn't even matter, because Asami would be at the end for her.

Asami’s eyes widen in surprise, glistening, but her smile doesn’t falter, so her speechless reaction doesn’t deter Korra in the slightest.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Korra tells her, and puts both of her hands on either sides of Asami’s shoulders. “I just want you to know that I love you.” _And it’s amazing_ , goes unspoken, but Korra’s sure that it’s probably painted on her face anyway. Her cheeks are starting to hurt from having to pull up her lips, but she keeps her smile. She couldn’t stop, even if she wanted to.

Loving Asami feels wonderful.

Finally, when Asami soaks in all of Korra’s loud, repetitive confessions, she pulls Korra closer to her body, so close they could be kissing, and she laughs. Not in a spiteful way, even if it makes Korra confused. Then, once her laughter is contained, she tells Korra:

“I love you too.”

And then Korra laughs.

Because she loves Asami.

Because she's loved.

And it’s so wonderful, she understands why Asami laughed when Korra told her; she feels it too. They're laughing so loud now Korra can’t even distinguish Asami’s voice from hers anymore.

They pull each other closer at the same time, toppling over onto the carpeted floor. If Korra still thinks in metaphors, then this means that Asami would be with her, even if she tipped off the tightrope, and in spite of the lava and earth, the fall won’t ever hurt.

The pair lies on the floor on their sides for what seems like hours, heaving out short bursts of giggles, long after they are clearly exhausted from laughing. Just staring at each other with big, dopey grins still glued to their faces. Korra is off the tightrope, and she’s metaphorically kissing Asami. In real life though, Korra says:

“You need a shower.”

And Asami replies,

“The hydrangeas are fine.”

So they lie on the carpet a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, TN.
> 
> And also, guys, I'm not new to tumblr, and I don't post much anyway, but if you want to talk about anything, or have prompts (which actually there's a high chance I can't write cause of life and my inability to write things unless I'm 110% in the mood, but who knows??) come send me a message!
> 
> [tumblr!](http://www.wrenasfastasyoucan.tumblr.com)
> 
> (side note: omg, I learned how to make a hyperlink. squeal~~)


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